Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:27 pm
This occured to me even before I started playing -- I was reading the Academy while downloading, and without knowing the game itself, the description of heavily escorted bombers attacking a base reminded me of B-17s and Mustangs.
The idea of a WWII faction has been on my mind ever since.
It would certainly be something cool to look at, though maybe only for the first time. Integrating it into Alleg will certainly be difficult, balancing it with regards to the other factions may prove impossible. This thread is titled "silly faction idea" for a reason.
However, if you think the idea might work out, and/or have some time to spare, please read on while I outline the skeleton concept I have so far. Maybe we can flesh it out.
Overall look and feel:
Mostly WWII craft, though it may be necessary to bring in 1950s models for advanced tech. Piston engines droning. Dive bomber klaxons.
I envision the bases to be asteroids cut in half, with an airstrip on the level surface (runway, hangars, maybe some scenery like trees and the likes). For once, the lauch sequence could make sense as planes roll down the runway.
One problem I see is that Nanites would be totally out-of-style; just look at Phoenix for how much trouble this makes. Furthermore, both proxies and tracking missiles wouldn't fit either... I'll deal with these issues later on. I can't imagine how any faction could work without ripcord, so as silly as it may feel, it will need to stay in.
No shields as such, but at least larger vessels should come with some self-repairing capability. Which means shields, though they may be of the same damage type as the hull.
Expansion
As far as Ints are concerned, Expansion will be the easiest to do. Like, Spitfires and Me-163s. Seeing as I have no clue how you could mix heavy boosters and piston engines, one could also consider the Me-163 and F-104 for enh/adv tech, even though the latter would be *very* advanced tech (you'd even need to slap on some missiles!).
Generally, I think they should be limited to killing small and medium craft (though being extremely good at it); fighting a pushed con would require both ints to deal with the escorts as well as figs to despose of the con.
As to Troop Transports, I think about Paratroopers (which would work similar to NG missiles). Low range, slow, and tracking ("gravitating" towards the target base).
For HTTs, I consider landing ships with a small base-killing gun (maybe as turret). Cease fire once the shields are down, or you won't capture but kill the base. These may be small-rip so they can utilise carriers; lacking nanites, they will need to be comparatively cheap and plentyful (and hence scale like galvs, which may be a bad idea as well).
Supremacy
Carrier based and long range multi-purpose aircraft. Being not too proficient with WWII gear, the only ones I can think up are Mosquitos, Mustangs or FW-190s. I'm not too shy of using LtBoosters in that case (call it NOx injection).
As to weaponry, I envision rockets and bombs (like GT Corvettes) and torpedoes.
Rockets would be unguided, mostly tailored to fight bombers and to a lesser degree utility craft; the latter may prove difficult due to miners and cons dodging, however, the Corvette missiles seem to be reasonably good at the task.
Bombs... as much as I'd love to see squadrons of dive bombers attacking miners, I don't think this will be possible (dodging again). So they would be mostly anti-base, again opening the issue of galv scaling. Well, and anti-cap of course.
Torpedoes would be the ultimate anti-util device, and the only one where I wouldn't mind if they would be tracking. However, the tracking ability that makes them perform reliably against dodging miners&cons will also make them utter cheese vs. any other non-boosting craft. How about them having no CM resistance at all?
Torps and bombs should be one-shot weapons; once you spent the one you had loaded at start, reloading another one from cargo should take like forever. This could be easily achieved by means of a ridiculous reload time. I'd wish something similar would be possible for rockets, but as these should come in packs of six or ten, I don't see how this can be done.
Besides, torps&bombs ought to be rather heavy -- you should feel the relief once the payload is gone, and
be tempted to just get rid of the weight when drawn into a dogfight.
Tactical
Tough one. I once considered dive bombers with cloaks ("out of the clouds") but there's too many difficulties with this approach. Instead, I now propose a submarine-style craft. It would be slow and low-sig by default (submerged) and come with a booster of sorts (emulating surface travel). A turret of sorts (AA gun to take down the lone scout before reinforements arrive) may or may not be a good idea.
SBs carrying some sort of base-killing missile may be based on the same design.
The main problem I see is that any default sig that allows them to remain operational at all in the presence of PPs will also make them undetectable to tac and sup.
Garrison
Scouts would be fighters with less firepower and more scanrange; instead of proxies, I propose a short-lived cloak of sorts (hide in a cloud).
As for bombers.... lacking nans, how about tough beasts with plenty of turrets? Again, Phoenix shows the limitations of the concept, but I can't think of any better. Besides, a WWII faction wouldn't be complete without Lancasters and B-29s. As to their bombs, they should be plentyful, fastfiring and somewhat tracking (again, call it gravity).
I think this faction should make heavy use of carriers; therefore, I propose to make both drones and piloted carriers available as Starbase/Garrison tech, and provide the station (or maybe even all techbases) with the ability to dock Capital ships. Maybe even the stealth "subs" should technically be caps.
The idea of a WWII faction has been on my mind ever since.
It would certainly be something cool to look at, though maybe only for the first time. Integrating it into Alleg will certainly be difficult, balancing it with regards to the other factions may prove impossible. This thread is titled "silly faction idea" for a reason.
However, if you think the idea might work out, and/or have some time to spare, please read on while I outline the skeleton concept I have so far. Maybe we can flesh it out.
Overall look and feel:
Mostly WWII craft, though it may be necessary to bring in 1950s models for advanced tech. Piston engines droning. Dive bomber klaxons.
I envision the bases to be asteroids cut in half, with an airstrip on the level surface (runway, hangars, maybe some scenery like trees and the likes). For once, the lauch sequence could make sense as planes roll down the runway.
One problem I see is that Nanites would be totally out-of-style; just look at Phoenix for how much trouble this makes. Furthermore, both proxies and tracking missiles wouldn't fit either... I'll deal with these issues later on. I can't imagine how any faction could work without ripcord, so as silly as it may feel, it will need to stay in.
No shields as such, but at least larger vessels should come with some self-repairing capability. Which means shields, though they may be of the same damage type as the hull.
Expansion
As far as Ints are concerned, Expansion will be the easiest to do. Like, Spitfires and Me-163s. Seeing as I have no clue how you could mix heavy boosters and piston engines, one could also consider the Me-163 and F-104 for enh/adv tech, even though the latter would be *very* advanced tech (you'd even need to slap on some missiles!).
Generally, I think they should be limited to killing small and medium craft (though being extremely good at it); fighting a pushed con would require both ints to deal with the escorts as well as figs to despose of the con.
As to Troop Transports, I think about Paratroopers (which would work similar to NG missiles). Low range, slow, and tracking ("gravitating" towards the target base).
For HTTs, I consider landing ships with a small base-killing gun (maybe as turret). Cease fire once the shields are down, or you won't capture but kill the base. These may be small-rip so they can utilise carriers; lacking nanites, they will need to be comparatively cheap and plentyful (and hence scale like galvs, which may be a bad idea as well).
Supremacy
Carrier based and long range multi-purpose aircraft. Being not too proficient with WWII gear, the only ones I can think up are Mosquitos, Mustangs or FW-190s. I'm not too shy of using LtBoosters in that case (call it NOx injection).
As to weaponry, I envision rockets and bombs (like GT Corvettes) and torpedoes.
Rockets would be unguided, mostly tailored to fight bombers and to a lesser degree utility craft; the latter may prove difficult due to miners and cons dodging, however, the Corvette missiles seem to be reasonably good at the task.
Bombs... as much as I'd love to see squadrons of dive bombers attacking miners, I don't think this will be possible (dodging again). So they would be mostly anti-base, again opening the issue of galv scaling. Well, and anti-cap of course.
Torpedoes would be the ultimate anti-util device, and the only one where I wouldn't mind if they would be tracking. However, the tracking ability that makes them perform reliably against dodging miners&cons will also make them utter cheese vs. any other non-boosting craft. How about them having no CM resistance at all?
Torps and bombs should be one-shot weapons; once you spent the one you had loaded at start, reloading another one from cargo should take like forever. This could be easily achieved by means of a ridiculous reload time. I'd wish something similar would be possible for rockets, but as these should come in packs of six or ten, I don't see how this can be done.
Besides, torps&bombs ought to be rather heavy -- you should feel the relief once the payload is gone, and
be tempted to just get rid of the weight when drawn into a dogfight.
Tactical
Tough one. I once considered dive bombers with cloaks ("out of the clouds") but there's too many difficulties with this approach. Instead, I now propose a submarine-style craft. It would be slow and low-sig by default (submerged) and come with a booster of sorts (emulating surface travel). A turret of sorts (AA gun to take down the lone scout before reinforements arrive) may or may not be a good idea.
SBs carrying some sort of base-killing missile may be based on the same design.
The main problem I see is that any default sig that allows them to remain operational at all in the presence of PPs will also make them undetectable to tac and sup.
Garrison
Scouts would be fighters with less firepower and more scanrange; instead of proxies, I propose a short-lived cloak of sorts (hide in a cloud).
As for bombers.... lacking nans, how about tough beasts with plenty of turrets? Again, Phoenix shows the limitations of the concept, but I can't think of any better. Besides, a WWII faction wouldn't be complete without Lancasters and B-29s. As to their bombs, they should be plentyful, fastfiring and somewhat tracking (again, call it gravity).
I think this faction should make heavy use of carriers; therefore, I propose to make both drones and piloted carriers available as Starbase/Garrison tech, and provide the station (or maybe even all techbases) with the ability to dock Capital ships. Maybe even the stealth "subs" should technically be caps.